Victoria
County History of Kent Vol. 3
1932 - Romano-British
Kent - Military History - Page 56
The Roman fort at Lympne covered an area of some 10
or 11 acres. Its shape is irregular, and may be likened to a rectangle
with a triangular extension on its highest side. On the east, north and
west the walls still survive. But they have been strangely distorted in
scattered ruin. The slope of Lympne hill is full of springs. These,
causing great landslips, have thrown the walls down, probably at a very
early date, and it is not easy now, except by excavation, to recover the
lines of the original enceinte. The south wall of the fort, which is
also the water front, presents a different problem. It has disappeared
from the surface, and, as at Richborough, some writers have argued that
it never existed, and that some now vanished cliff or lake supplied the
defence. But the analogy of other Roman fortifications requires us to
reject this idea, and, indeed, some traces of the missing wall ‘were
discovered by the spade twelve years ago (P1. XI).88
The construction of the walls is that usual on the Saxon
Shore—a core of ‘mortar and local sandstone rubble, a facing of the
same limestone in neatly coursed blocks usually about 5 in. to 6
in. high and 7 in. to 8in. long, and regular :rows of bonding tiles
running through from face to face. Their thickness is 12 ft. to 14 ft.,
and their height is still in places 20 ft. For the most part, no ‘special
foundations seem to have been supplied; the walls were planted simply on
the ground, with a set-off on each face. But Sir Victor Horsley found
under the tower at the north-west corner, beneath the set-off course, at
least 9 ft. of concrete containing stones of 12 in. to 18 in. diameter.
External bastions strengthened the defence. They vary
slightly in size and shape, but are generally semicircular and project
15 ft.; and with one exception they are tied into the main wall, and
match it exactly in their courses of stone and tile. They are solid, but
three of them at least have small internal chambers, 6 ft. high and 6
ft. to 8 ft. wide and long.
The chief gate was a little below the middle of the east
wall. If its distorted ruins have |
Fig.. 12.—LYMNE: THE CHIEF GATE
(From C. Roach Smith, Richborough, Reculver and Lynme, p. 252)
|
been rightly understood by its discoverers, it had a
single entrance 11 ft. wide, flanked with two solid towers or walls of
masonry, which projected like semicircular bastions alike in front of
the main wall and behind it. The whole was supported by a substantial
platform of heavy stonework in two layers, which extended right across
the gate.89 We may compare the large gateway at Richborough
where also |
88 Excavations
by Sir Victor Horsley in 1894, briefly noticed in Athenaeum, 22
Sept. 1894, but apparently very properly described.
89 C. R. Smith, Report, p. 12
and plate iii by Fairholt. The walling shown in the plate between the
bastions has puzzled some critics, including Mr. Fox; it appears,
however, to be due to landslip (Richborough, etc., p. 253).
Fairholt’s original drawing is in the Soc. of Antiq. scrapbooks: it
shows a gatepost hole not visible in the engraving. |
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